We were lucky to catch up with Marisa Mu recently and have shared our conversation below.
Marisa , thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?
I get my resilience from my late mother who has given me a deep understanding of my purpose and self worth.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
I am a full-time visual artist currently living and working in Melbourne, Australia. My inter-disciplinary practice spans across painting, textiles, sculpture, poetry and performance, centred around community engagement.
As a queer woman of colour, my purpose as an artist is to inspire positive change within people through art. The catharsis of painting has enabled me to merge my personal narratives and cultural histories. Through this, I explore themes of Queer Expression, Intersectional Feminism, The Asian Diaspora and Body Liberation. I advocate for visibility and truth telling through lived experiences and to elevate migrant and refugee women, the LGBTQIA+ community and all culturally diverse folk.
In 2019, I co-founded Tits & Co. This space facilitates underrepresented artists, supporting female and gender-non-conforming peoples. Through submissions, events and exhibitions we aim to give these communities a voice, bridging the gap between maker and space.
My work is a conscious celebration of hope, playful optimism, resilience and love.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Bravery, authenticity and grit are the qualities I believe have had the most impact on my personal journey as an artist.
Firstly, you must acknowledge that it takes bravery to back yourself and understand that you have an important talent, skill or message and purpose that you want to share with the world. It takes courage to put yourself out there and that is because the root of being brave is to fundamentally be vulnerable – being vulnerable to the unknown but also to be seen and judged. But we must reframe how we see vulnerability as weakness because we can not be brave without taking that leap of faith.
Being true to yourself, being a person of integrity is what I live by both personally and professionally and I believe that people resonate with honesty and realness. It allows space for truth-telling and impactful connections. Grit is a quality that I believe people can really harness and practice because its a mental game – perservering through challenging times builds character and understanding of self – this is all important in order to learn, grow and evolve.
What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?
My biggest area of growth the past year has been sitting with the uncomfortability of realising that I had cultivated everything I thought I ever wanted in my life – a loving partner, a beautiful community and home, living my life as an artist but actually have been silencing my dreams of creating conceptually driven work and wanting to be living and practicing in NYC.
I have undergone a huge personal journey of unpacking the intersects of my queerness and cultural identity and laying down the foundations for new bodies of work that diverge from my known style – this is me being brave and vulnerable with myself about the artist I want to be and the work I want to be known for. It has been incredible liberating and cathartic to come to this point in my career where I am actualising the words I have spoken many times about what i want to do be doing in my practice and to chase my dreams of creating work I am proud of and to challenge myself deeper by relocating to the city that never sleeps – a place that brings a deeper pulse to my breath and a new world of opportunity for art and my life.
I am remembering who I am again and redefining a future that I will be proud to look back on 10 – 20 years from now. I will be able to say I was brave and chased my dreams.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.marisamu.com
- Instagram: @marisa.mu
Image Credits
Studio Photographer: Maysie Lecciones
